I believe the major issue is lack of consumer software available in the
Linux community. I'm not saying that I don't find tons of open source
projects and some of high quality, but there's nothing to compete with the
top of the line proprietary graphics and audio software available on
Windows and Mac. For a developer Linux makes the most sense, it's
lightweight and therefore fast and can run Eclipse and other full on IDEs
and generally there's a compiler available for every language and to target
many systems (VMs or Processors). So for a dev like myself it makes
perfect sense, however for someone I work with who strictly does creative
work, ever having to deal with the command line is probably too much to
ask. They have lots of work to do and if the software available doesn't
make their work as fast as it can be on a Windows or Mac OS machine then it
just can't sell. Believe me I'm all for Linux and FOSS and Ubuntu, but I
think for it to really happen the open source community needs to step up
the game with regard to media editing/creation software (ffmpeg is great
but explain it to a video editor, granted the video editing GUIs for Ubuntu
I've found are very fast, but just lack advanced features).
As it stands today I think we have the following large groups of computer
users:
Developers | Love Linux, works great for them, all the tools you need
nothing you don't, fast, easy customization.
System Admins | Love Linux, works great for them, cheap solution good
performance good security history can run J2EE and other enterprise scale
application servers/containers.
General Public (mom & pop) | Are frightened of change, have been fed the
Windows bread all their professional lives. Linux can work for them and
well but they need some help to get started (e-mail, web-browsing all
great, UI is easy enough for these tasks, it's fast did I mention that).
Media/Content Creators | Tools are not up to par cannot really use Linux on
a Day to Day basis simply because the tools are not refined or in-depth
enough to match their Windows/Mac OS counter-parts.
If a corporation like the one I work for was offered the opportunity to
have all of their employees work without licensing costs for OS upgrades
and knowing everyone is getting the best bang for their buck out of their
hardware, and would be supporting just 1 open source OS, I don't think
anyone would be complaining and this bug would dissolve quickly. I believe
LibreOffice/OpenOffice are good alternatives to MS Office and the e-mail
clients are fine, I think another major area that needs to be addressed by
the open source community is Exchange server. GMail has made some strides
in providing a replacement but it's not 100% in terms of group contact
management and other features that Exchange offers for businesses. So I
say we create the following and get this bug closed.
Replacement for the following:
Final Cut/Premiere
Pro Tools
Exchange/Outlook
Photoshop
Illustrator
Here's the list I can come up with of possible replacements in Ubuntu, but
none seem totally up to par:
Video editing
http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/top5-linux-video-editing-system-software/ (I've
used KDen live not the others here, it was as I said above fast but not
feature full)
Audio editing Rezound or Audacity, Rezound seems to be dead with regard to
development, Audacity is okay but again not great UX/UI interactions and
not a ton of features.
In terms of Mail servers I believe they're just missing the calendar side
of exchange, and contact management/integration in Active Directory, though
perhaps there's an alternative for that I'm unaware of
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MailServer I've also heard good things
about Citadel and Zimbra and had a brief stint playing with Zimbra but got
caught up in other work, some others talking about it here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1231456
Photo Editing: GIMP, decent but hard learning curve, kind of slow to start
up and generally work-flow in PhotoShop seems to be smoother, although this
coming from someone who has used PhotoShop far more.
SVG editor: Inkscape, haven't used this one honestly just assuming from
what I've heard from those who have that it's not as easy to use as
Illustrator (granted the Adobe suite has been refined by paid engineers for
some time and is still a resource hog)
I think hardware vendors will support Linux more once consumers demand it,
and not before.
So yah currently that's my two cents. Please respond and tell me how wrong
I am and point me towards all the bad ass software I'm missing out on :).
Thanks for reading if you got through that,
-Shaun
PS I would love a Lenovo with Ubuntu pre-installed (and no Windows OEM fee
to boot).
On Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 5:32 AM, MDV wrote:
> In Australia there is a bug in the education system where the only OS
> they seem to use is Windows XP or 7. At a Tafe open day I asked if their
> network supported Ubuntu, the guy pauses and says no.
>
> This bug is everywhere I look!
>
> The Australian DET will not allow any Linux distrobutions to connect to
> the internet, they allow Macs as well, but not a single Linux!
>
> To fix this bug:
> - There should be at least 1 Linux computer per Computer room. (The Win7
> Computers are so restrictive it's not funny)
> - Preferably they should remove this propiatary bias and allow to learn
> about an OS that will allow them to learn about it.
> - Even more preferable, remove Microsofts greedy corporate grip off of
> everyone, and get rid of Windows!
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1
>
> Title:
> Microsoft has a majority market share
>
> Status in Club Distro:
> Confirmed
> Status in Computer Science Ubuntu:
> Confirmed
> Status in LibreOffice Productivity Suite:
> New
> Status in dylan.NET.Reflection:
> Invalid
> Status in dylan.NET:
> Invalid
> Status in EasyPeasy Overview:
> Invalid
> Status in Ichthux - Linux for Christians:
> Invalid
> Status in JAK LINUX:
> Invalid
> Status in LibreOffice:
> In Progress
> Status in The Linux Kernel:
> New
> Status in The Linux Mint Distribution:
> In Progress
> Status in The Linux OS Project:
> In Progress
> Status in The Metacity Window Manager:
> In Progress
> Status in The OpenOffice.org Suite:
> In Progress
> Status in Tabuntu:
> Invalid
> Status in A simple player to online TV streaming:
> Invalid
> Status in Tv-Player:
> Invalid
> Status in Ubuntu Malaysia LoCo Team Meta Project:
> In Progress
> Status in Ubuntu:
> In Progress
> Status in “ubuntu-express” package in Ubuntu:
> In Progress
> Status in The Jaunty Jackalope:
> Invalid
> Status in “ubuntu-express” source package in Jaunty:
> Invalid
> Status in Arch Linux:
> Confirmed
> Status in Baltix GNU/Linux:
> Invalid
> Status in “linux” package in Debian:
> In Progress
> Status in Fluxbuntu: The Lightweight, Productive, Agile OS:
> Confirmed
> Status in openSUSE:
> In Progress
> Status in Tilix Linux:
> New
>
> Bug description:
> Microsoft has a majority market share in the new desktop PC marketplace.
> This is a bug, which Ubuntu is designed to fix.
>
> Non-free software is holding back innovation in the IT industry,
> restricting access to IT to a small part of the world's population and
> limiting the ability of software developers to reach their full
> potential, globally. This bug is widely evident in the PC industry.
>
> Steps to repeat:
>
> 1. Visit a local PC store.
>
> What happens:
> 2. Observe that a majority of PCs for sale have non-free software
> pre-installed.
> 3. Observe very few PCs with Ubuntu and free software pre-installed.
>
> What should happen:
> 1. A majority of the PCs for sale should include only free software like
> Ubuntu.
> 2. Ubuntu should be marketed in a way such that its amazing features and
> benefits would be apparent and known by all.
> 3. The system shall become more and more user friendly as time passes.
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/clubdistro/+bug/1/+subscriptions
>